


Beauty and the Beast

by AnkaraFerus



Category: Dadaroma, Penicillin (Band), Visual Kei - Fandom
Genre: Bondage and Discipline, Imprisonment, M/M, Mental Coercion, Non-Consensual Bondage, Physical Abuse, Stockholm Syndrome, Suicidal Thoughts, Vibrators
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-07-21 23:19:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 21,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7409164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnkaraFerus/pseuds/AnkaraFerus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>**Takes place in the same universe as my Demon Kings series, but written as a standalone.**  Takashi is a vampire on the prowl, not for blood but for a no-strings-attached good time.  Little does he know that the target of his infatuation is a vampire hunter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_He’s human, but I don’t care._

 

I pulled the little bar straw between my lips and rolled it around with my tongue as I eyed a dark young man at the other end of the bar.  My body was anxious, vibrating, on the prowl.  Not for blood, but for something equally carnal, equally violent.  How long had it been?  Not that long, if I was really honest.  Yet, my skin ached to be touched.  My mind spun with impure thoughts as I drank in his sensual severity.  Isn’t that what the kids called it nowadays? _Thirst._  How ironically appropriate.

 

Long limbs, long fingers, long nose.  Every part of him stretched to the limit.  I grinned to myself as I leaned back in my stool to sneak a peek below the bartop. I wonder what else about him is long. Narrow eyes flicked in my direction, so cold they made me shiver.  I wondered what they would look like heated with passion.  I straightened in my seat and smiled, sweet and innocent.  He looked away.

 

_Damn._

 

Pouting, I swirled the straw around the pale pink dregs of my drink and kicked my feet around the legs of the stool.  Heavy platform heels clunked loudly against the foot rest.  I scanned the room for easier prey, but none made me feel as he did.  None made my heart race and my thighs tingle like he did.  All with one brief flick of his eyes.

 

With a determined _humph_ , I dropped out of my seat and, dragging my drink along the bar with me, slid up to his elbow.  His brows lowered over his eyes as I approached.

 

“Determined to ignore me, huh?”

 

“I’m not looking for company,” he said.  God, even his voice was sexy.  Low and thick like melted chocolate.

 

“You don’t know what you’re missin’.”  I twirled a strand of pastel purple hair around my finger and cocked a leather-clad hip.  “Gay or straight?”

 

“Excuse me?” he asked, his eyes jerking back around to me.

 

“Do-you-like-boys?”

 

“I know what gay means.”

 

“So?”

 

“Irrelevant.” He turned his back to me, fingers locking around a high-ball glass.

 

“I think in this situation, it’s quite relevant.”  I swung myself around him, dragging my fingers along his back as I moved, and planted myself back in his field of vision.

 

“I told you, I’m not--”

 

“--looking for company.  Right.”  I pouted, batting my eyes as I slid my hand up over his knee.  “What if I told you that company wasn’t exactly what I was after?”

 

An electric surge pulsed through me as I heard it, the little pitter-patter of his racing heart. _Oh, he definitely likes boys_ , I thought to myself as I edged closer, pushing my hips between his knees and watching the jerky motion of his adam’s apple.  Up and down.

 

“My name’s Takashi,” I said, voice barely audible over the din of the bar.

 

“T-Tomo.”

 

“You wanna get out of here, Tomo?”  His adam’s apple jerked again before he nodded, short and sharp.

 

I took his hand and pulled him off his stool and out of the bar.  Once outside, he took the lead, hailing a cab and throwing me into the back seat.  He barked an address to the driver.  His place.  We were going to his place.  I grew hot with nervous excitement and I slid closer to him, pushing my body against his arm and breathing into his neck.  I heard the blood rushing beneath his skin, a heavy, pulsing whoosh like waves on a beach.  I slid my tongue out to lick at the vein and he stiffened.

 

“Hurry,” he said without looking at me.

 

We pulled up in front of a rather plain-looking white house, big for Tokyo but not ostentatious.  Tomo threw a bill at the driver without even waiting to hear the fare and pulled me out of the cab.  My face felt hot, everything felt hot.  My cock twitched and I pressed it against the back of his thigh as he struggled to unlock the door, dropping his keys.

 

Once inside, I immediately backed him against a wall.  His chest heaved against mine and his hands clenched around my hips as my hands slipped under the hem of his tshirt and grazed the hard, lean muscles of his abdomen.  I hummed into his neck and his adam’s apple bounced against my nose as one hand slid down over the front of his jeans.

 

“Do you want a drink?” he asked quickly, pushing me away and sliding out of my grip.  “I’m gonna make us a drink.”  


“Why?”  The question came out with an edge, sharpened by my frustration.

 

“It’s the polite thing to do, isn’t it?” he said with his back to me as he disappeared into the kitchen.

 

“There is nothing _polite_ about what I want to do.”  I followed him slowly, kicking off my boots and plucking open the buttons of my silk shirt, letting it slip seductively off one shoulder.  When I caught up to him, he was screwing the cap back onto a bottle of whiskey.  He turned, a pair of drinks in his hand, and stopped short.  I think he even stopped breathing.

 

“You know I don’t...I mean, I never…”

 

I laughed.  “Yeah, me neither.”  I took one of the drinks from his hands and downed it in two quick swallows.  Depositing my empty glass on the counter behind him, I pressed myself against him again.  I plucked the second glass from his hand and downed that one as well, licking my lips suggestively.  A strained little groan slipped from his throat and his hands balled in the fabric of my shirt, tugging it down lower.

 

My hastily-consumed drinks made their presence known as I laced my fingers through his hair, lending everything a pleasant softness. _Now, you’ve gotten me drunk.  Time to take advantage of me._ I went up on my toes in an effort to reach his lips but quickly dropped back down as I began to sway.  A tingle of apprehension colored my lustful thoughts as I took a mental tally of the night’s drinks.  Two at the bar.  Two here.  My vampire metabolism should easily be able to handle the strain.

 

He roofied me!  I couldn’t help but laugh.  This little date rape scenario seemed a little redundant considering I was more than willing to give it up.  If I gave it a moment, the effects would pass.  I played into his fantasies, fluttering my lashes and letting my head fall back as I pulled him down to me.  I released a whine as I felt his breath, hot and hard against my bare shoulder.  But, it didn’t pass.  Apprehension turned to fear as my knees started to buckle.  Softness turned to queasiness and the floor bucked beneath me.  I grasped his shirt to keep from falling, tugging his collar down to expose his collarbone where something dark caught my eye.  Black on pale skin.  A tattoo.

 

“Son of a bitch!”  I shoved myself away from him when I realized what it was.  A crossed stake and sword.  The mark of a Hunter.  What I was feeling wasn’t Rohypnol, but Hunter poison, specifically designed to put down vampires.

 

I stumbled backward in a panic, falling over tables and chairs and eventually ending up on my hands and knees.  He followed with slow, deliberate steps, the neck of the whiskey bottle clutched in his hand.  All that endearing nervousness fell away and he became a ruthless predator.  A rattlesnake just sitting back and waiting for his prey to succumb to his bite.

 

My muscles turned to stone and I fell with my back against the sofa.  I tried to scream as his blurred outline drew closer, but I couldn’t catch my breath.  I knew what he would do.  Torture me, bleed me, rip out my fangs.  Kill me over and over again until I no longer had the will to fight my way back.

 

_And, I didn’t even get laid._

 

My stomach turned as he squatted on his haunches in front of me.  Those cold eyes that had so enthralled me now making me squirm in disgust.  Every place he touched me crawled as if infested with lice.  He lifted his free hand and swept it through my hair.  I spat in his face.

 

The corners of his mouth jerked downward as he brushed the spittle from his cheeks.  Panic shot like acid through my veins as his grip tightened on the neck of the whiskey bottle.  I reached deep inside my heart as he lifted it over his head, finding all the things I lived for and stacking them up, clinging to them, telling myself no matter what happens, not to forget them.

 

The bottle swung down and it all went black.


	2. Chapter 2

I came to on a cold, concrete floor, the sticky sensation of blood in my hair though the wound had long closed and a lingering feeling of heaviness.  Everything ached like a bad hangover.  I groaned and the sound came out muffled, the air around my face hot and stuffy.  Without moving, without even opening my eyes, I attempted to open my mouth and immediately felt resistance. A thick, rough material covered the entire lower half of my face, wrapped around my head and was fastened with something heavy.  I gingerly rolled my head to the side and heard it clang.  A padlock.

 

He’d muzzled me.  That goddamned son of a bitch hunter muzzled me.

 

I lifted my hands to touch the dreadful thing and they scraped heavily across the concrete with an unnatural sound.  I cracked open one bleary eye, willing it to focus on the hunk of metal clamped around my wrists.  Shackles connected by a thick chain secured to the floor.  Heavy like steel but coated in silver.  Another eye opened and my vision swam as I forced myself upright.  The chain gave me about half a meter of slack, enough to sit up but not stand, enough to lift my arms but not quite touch the thing on my face.

 

I groaned again as a wave of pain slid across my skin.  I was hungry.  Violently hungry.  It didn’t make sense.  I blinked hard, forcing my eyes to focus through the migraine-level pressure in my head.  It had only been a few hours since I’d last taken.  Even fighting through the effects of the poison shouldn’t have burned through this much.  But, my internal monster was angry, roaring, demanding to be fed.  I caught sight of something white protruding from under the cuff of my shirt.  I pulled back my sleeve, revealing a neat gauze bandage from wrist to elbow bisected by a thin red line of blood.

 

Well, fuck.

 

I squeezed my eyes closed again and found the little pile of things stacked up in my heart.  I counted them off:  the sun on a cool, crisp day, a long, hard fuck, the nape of a girl’s neck in her summer yukata and the taste of expensive wine.  I filled my mind with each one until the pain in my veins faded, replaced by soft warmth.  

 

I can do this.  I won’t let him break me.  I won’t.

 

Reality snapped back with the sound of keys rattling in a heavy lock.  I opened my eyes, pulling back instinctively as Tomo appeared framed in the doorway.  For the longest time, he stood in silence, hard eyes studying me, drinking me in.  Part of me wondered if he had touched me while I was unconscious and the thought made me feel sick.

 

“I brought you something.”  I flinched as his dark chocolate voice ricocheted through the bare space.  He held up a cylindrical bottle fitted with what looked like a rubber nipple and sloshing with dark, thick liquid.  I knew it from the stink.  Dead blood.  He tugged on the little rubber nipple with a smirk, gesturing to the muzzle.  I had to practically fold myself in half, but I managed to just graze the surface with my fingertip, finding a hole about the size of a one yen piece.

 

Motherfucker thought of everything.

 

He took a step forward and I jerked back, fleeing as far from him as the chain would allow which wasn’t far.  He stopped short with an exasperated look.  The kind of look you give a misbehaved child.  I threw a string of expletives, but they only came out a series of garbled grunts thanks to the contraption on my face.

 

“That’s no way to behave,” he said, frowning.  “It doesn’t have to be this way.  Life is all about...choices.”  He reached behind his back, extracting a short, silver knife from his belt and holding it up alongside the bottle.  “This can be as easy or as difficult as you make it.  Would you like to try again?”

 

I grunted behind my mask, eyes darting between the blade and the bottle.  Not much in the way of choices, I have to say.  I eyed the knife, flexing my sore muscles.  If I drew him in close enough, would I have the strength to wrestle it away before he used it on me?  In a fair fight, maybe.  Restrained as I was, no way.  The blood was my only hope.  Regain my strength and live to fight another day.

 

My eyes stopped on the bottle and he nodded his approval, slipping the knife back into its holster.  He moved forward another couple of steps before squatting down just outside the reach of my chains and setting the bottle on the ground in front of him.  I inched forward like a cowering animal, keeping myself as far away from him as I could as I reached out for it.  Using just the ends of my fingernails, I pulled it back toward me, clutching it to my chest like a talisman.

 

Now, the next challenge.  Tomo had provided the muzzle with an opening, but the chains didn’t give me enough play to tip the bottle upright.  I got on my hands and knees, guiding the nipple into the hole and pinching it between my teeth.  God, this was degrading, but like hell I was going to let him bottle feed me.  Balancing the bottom edge of the bottle on my fingertips, I rolled flat onto my back, getting just enough help from gravity to send the viscous liquid oozing downward.

 

As soon as it hit the back of my throat, I gagged, the convulsion knocking the bottle out of my grip and sending it skittering across the floor.  Not only was it thick and rancid, he had dosed it with more of that hunter poison.  My eyes watered and tongue went numb even as a spike of pain shot through my gut.  Simultaneous craving and rejection.  

 

I curled into a tight ball as I heard Tomo stand to retrieve the bottle.   _ The sun, a hard fuck, a girl’s neck…   _ I repeated the list over and over in my mind as the beast raged within me.  A sharp sting through my scalp as he grabbed a handful of my hair and used it to pull me to my knees, only to send me back down with a sharp strike to the cheekbone.

 

“You will take what I give you,” he said in an even voice, grabbing me by the hair once again and shoving the bottle against the mask.  “You will take it and be grateful or starve.”

 

Dead blood poured through the hole and it was swallow or drown.  Once, twice, kicking and scrabbling all the way until I finally managed to dislodge the bottle and spit a mouthful of blood back at Tomo.  Cold eyes now flashing fire, he released my hair and stood over me, kicking me hard in the torso.  Two, maybe three ribs broken.  Another kick.  Make that four.  

 

“Fine, have it your way,” he said, tossing the bottle away and out of my reach.  

 

Well, fuck.


	3. Chapter 3

I can do this. I can.  
  
I lay flat on my back, eyes clenched shut as the pain in my ribs slowly faded only to be replaced by a sharper, more insistent one. The stench of dead blood filled the air, making me both queasy and anxious. I tried not to think about the bottle lying innocently in the corner just out of reach. Why did I refuse the blood? I’d made the decision to drink it. Why did I spit it back in his face?  
  
Because, it was what he wanted. To keep me drugged. To keep my body weak and my mind soft. I growled low in my throat. I wouldn’t let him win. I could figure this out. I just needed to focus.  
  
With a decisive grunt, I rolled myself onto my front and pushed myself upright. I’d played those room escape games a million times. This was no different. I just had to find the clues. I took a deep breath and concentrated on the room. No easy task with my inner monster tapping on the back of my eyeballs. The room was long and narrow, maybe four meters across and ten long with a feeling like a closed-in garage. Exposed steel beams supporting cinder block walls. If I could get to them, I was sure I could break through.  
  
If I could get to them.  
  
The shackles on my wrists posed the biggest problem. I lifted them as far as I could and they shone like grotesque silver bracelets in the dim light. I could raise my hands to just chest level, separate them by only a few centimeters. I squinted at the chain between them, looking for weaknesses, jerking my arms outward as hard as I could manage, but to no avail. I stretched the fingers of my right hand over my left wrist in an effort to reach the bolt binding the bracelets, but the lack of play made it impossible, the action itself causing the cuff to rotate away.  
  
I stubbornly tugged and twisted in every direction until my wrists bruised, snorting and huffing with the effort. Heart pounding and sweat pouring down my temples, I grasped the chain and followed it to a heavy iron anchor in the floor. Arranging myself into a squatting position with the anchor between my feet, I wrapped my hands around the chain and pulled. I screamed into the mask, ignoring the darkness creeping into my vision as I strained against my bindings. The monster roared within me, scraping at the inside of my skin.  
  
Next I knew, I was flat on my face in a shivering mass. Shit, I blacked out. Pain radiated from my wrists and fingertips and blood streaked the floor. The monster had taken control, clawing at the concrete around the anchor until my fingernails were broken and bloody. The silver shackles cut into my wrists, leaving ragged wounds that didn’t heal.  
  
I pushed my head up, searching desperately for the discarded bottle. There, against the back wall, lying on its side and surrounded by a spattering of blood. A desperate sound escaped me as I twisted my body toward it. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t. If I blacked out, that meant the sleep was coming and I just couldn’t--  
  
Hot tears blurred my vision as I kicked my feet out toward the wall, stretching my joints to the limit. Sleep. That terrible sleep of starvation. A whirlwind of pain and a vampire’s worst nightmare. If I fell into the sleep now, I would never wake. Tomo wouldn’t be able to wake me, if he even would, and I would never get out of this fucking room. I would never see the sun, or the shape of a girl’s neck or taste fine wine…  
  
Blackness crept in again and I raged against it, pulling madly at my chains and screaming like something damned. I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want to live like that. An eternity of nothing, an existence of suffering in some hellish in-between. Fire lanced through my every fiber. My heart shuddered and skipped as what little strength I had leeched away. This was it. The moment I would have to choose.  
  
The sound of a heavy lock and something pressed hard against my face. My whole body jerked as a thick liquid hit my lips. Blood! A grateful cry exploded from my throat as I opened my mouth to it, fingers clawing desperately at the bottom edge of the bottle. A low, dark voice saying, “It’s okay. You’re okay.”  
  
The blood and the drug within it mixed to create a sort of lethargic euphoria. My muscles twitched as they greedily absorbed every drop until they grew heavy. Tear-filled eyes blinked up at the dark figure hovering over me. Tomo. My captor. My savior.  
  
My arms grew so heavy under the chains I could no longer hold them up and Tomo caught the bottle as they fell limp to my sides. The part of me that was still conscious said, _So it’s come to this._ The rest of me didn’t care. Didn’t care that my head rested in his lap. That his free hand brushed through my hair. I drank until the bottle was empty, moaning when he took it away.  
  
“It doesn’t have to be like this.” I blinked slowly as a sluggish high settled over me. “You don’t have to die in pain.” Silver flashed across my vision as he drew his knife and I flinched away from it. He sighed, an almost sad sound, before putting it away again and fishing something else out of his pocket. A small key.  
  
“Your life is unnatural,” he said, reaching around the back of my head and fitting it into the padlock. “But, it’s not your fault.” A tear slid down my face and I gave a great moan of relief as the lock snapped open and he gently lifted the muzzle away. A barrage of images flashed through my vision, things I’d seen but shouldn’t have seen, things that shouldn’t be possible, and I began to shake. He touched my cheek, brushed a spot of blood from my lips.  
  
“I’ll be here to help you when you change your mind.”


	4. Chapter 4

He left me alone after that.  Alone with my disjointed thoughts.  Laying prone on my side, I watched a trail of ants that had somehow made their way inside march past my nose.  They looked huge from this angle, gathering around the edge of a drop of spilled blood like wildebeests at a riverbank.  In my stupor, I imagined a crocodile looming just below the surface, waiting to snatch one off and drown it in the crimson depths.  Only, it wasn’t a crocodile, but some twisted, long-fanged monster with skin black as night and bright white eyes.

 

It should have scared me and on some instinctual level, it did.  But more than that, it felt familiar.  It growled and hissed and I knew its voice.  I knew the sharpness of its claws and the heat of its breath.  The infernal motor that powered my unnatural life.

 

_ It’s not your fault. _

 

I squeezed my eyes shut in an effort to stop the thoughts sloshing around my drugged brain.  I pictured myself sitting on a bench in Shinjuku Koen on a clear, fall day, the sun filtering through bright red and orange leaves.  I turned my face up toward it, basking in its warmth until a drop of something wet and sticky landed on my cheek.  I touched it with my fingertips.  Blood dripped from the trees and the wind hissed with the monster’s voice.

 

When the door opened again, I didn’t know if I should scream or cry.  I opened my eyes to Tomo’s silent presence and another bottle of stinking blood.  The effects of the poison had just begun to ebb and I sat up with half a mind to fight, to sink my teeth into him as soon as he stepped in close, but then my eyes caught the muzzle hanging on a hook just inside the door.  A subtle and ever-present threat.

 

“Are you going to behave this time?” he asked, smirking as if he’d read my thoughts.

 

“Fuck you.”

 

“I see.” He frowned in disappointment, sending a cold shot of panic across my chest.  He rolled the bottle between the palms of his hands and I squirmed in my seat, making the chains rattle around me. My fingers spread across the floor toward him.   _ Please don’t leave.  Please don’t leave. _

 

He took one long, forceful step toward me, shoving the bottle into my face.  Without thinking, I grappled with his arm, hooking my fingers around his elbow and pulling it down.  “What did I tell you about taking what I give you!” he shouted, pushing toward me with so much force blood spattered over both of us.  “Do you want to starve?”

 

“I don’t need you to feed me.  I’m not a fucking child!”  He pulled away, taking the bottle with him and I panicked again.  “Just...just leave it and I’ll do it myself.”

 

He growled to himself, crossing his arms and tapping his foot.  Finally he relented, setting the bottle down just inside my reach.  Just as before, I snatched it up, rolling onto my back and balancing it precariously on my fingers.  Only this time, without the muzzle to guide the stream, it ended up dribbling all over my face.  My eyes burned with frustration as I heard him laughing.

 

“Yes, this is much more dignified.”  I ignored him, chasing the stream around with my mouth and eventually catching the nipple of the bottle between my teeth.  It wasn’t long before the poison took effect and I was struggling with even that.  I whimpered as the bottle slipped from my grip and Tomo caught it once again with a long sigh.  “I admire your stubbornness,” he said, “but, it will be your undoing.”

 

I barely heard him anymore.  There was only the blood and the high and then he was gone, leaving me alone with my oppressive thoughts.

 

I don’t know how long we went on this way.  With no other reliable method, I counted the passage of time only by his visits.  He appeared without fail just as the poison began to fade.  This was, coincidentally, also when the visions were the worst.  When my tired mind pulled itself from the mud to torment me.  I tried to latch onto those things I lived for, but they became tainted.  Blood-soaked and full of demons.  I thought often of his words to me on that first day.   _ I’ll be here to help you when you change your mind _ .  He had no idea what a comfort they had become.

 

I came to look forward to his appearance, sitting up like a dog at the sound of his keys in the locks and licking my lips for the drug he brought with him.  Even my half-hearted defiance fell away and I allowed him to feed me, head resting in his lap, and when he got up to leave, I clung to his legs in fear of the silence and the despair that followed. 

 

I don’t know what I feared worse, being punished or being alone.

 

The longer I was there, the more I came to understand what he meant when he said life was about choices.  I could choose his tainted blood or starve.  I could choose to keep my fangs to myself or be muzzled.  I could even choose whether to live or die.  Every visit he showed that silver knife to me and every time I recoiled away from it only to yearn for it in the desperate, lonely in-between.  

 

But, that was a choice, too.  It wasn’t like I needed it.  I remembered stories of the old ones that, weary and tired of life, just lay down one day, closed their eyes and let go.  But, no matter how bad it was, no matter how much the drugs and silence toyed with my mind, when I closed my eyes, some part of me wanted to hang on.  Some part of me held out hope for a future beyond Tomo’s slow torture, clung to the moments when he could be almost gentle.  

 

Is that what I was living for, now?

 

I pressed my forehead into the cold concrete floor, shivering as I heard the door rattle open once again.  I held my breath and waited for the sound of his slow footsteps toward me, but heard only a rustle of motion and a hollow thonk.  Without lifting my head, I cracked one eye open and peered out the corner to see Tomo unroll a short length of hose and connect it to a spigot in the corner.  The other end rested in a bucket he’d dropped by the door and soon the room filled with the sound of rushing water.

 

“W-what’s going on?” I asked, rolling my head toward him.

 

“You stink,” he said, adjusting the hose as the bucket filled.  “You need a bath.”  I scowled, pushing my head back toward the floor.   _ Well, if you weren’t feeding me shit... _ Soon, the water stopped and Tomo’s feet appeared in the corner of my vision, along with the now-heavy bucket and various other accoutrement.  

 

_ What fresh hell is this? _

 

“Sit up.”  I pushed myself upright, eyes downcast.  “Look at me.”  Ice in my gut, I raised my eyes to meet his cold stare.  He held one of those wretched bottles in his hand.  “What we are about to do requires trust.  This,” he said, shaking the bottle in my direction, “is untainted by poison.  Behave and you will be rewarded.  Misbehave and…”

 

His unspoken threat hung in the air between us like fog.  I swallowed hard, heart pounding as I sniffed the air.  I licked my lips, mouth watering so hard I was practically drooling.  Clean blood.  Still dead, but without the awful tranquilizing effects of the poison.  I could have wept.

 

“Do we have an understanding?”

 

“Y-yeah, okay.”

 

“Good.”  Tomo turned on his heel back toward the door, setting the bottle down and opening a recessed panel on the wall.  I flinched at the grinding sound of a motor from overhead.  A thick steel hook lowered from the ceiling on a motorized pulley, stopping so close to my face I went cross-eyed.  Tomo appeared in front of me again, grabbing the chain connecting my wrists and yanking it upward, looping it through the hook.  Back to the wall again and, with another series of pressed buttons, the anchor binding me to the floor opened, releasing the chain and allowing me to be pulled upward by the hook and to my feet.  

 

I was standing!  I couldn’t stop the elated laugh that burst from my throat.  I was still rather immobile, with my hands stretched high over my head, but my weight was firmly on my feet and I groaned with relief as my sore joints stretched and popped back into place.  I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, flexing my calves and pointing my toes and humming with the pleasure of being upright and off the hard floor.

 

Tomo approached me again and I tensed as he reached for the buttons of my shirt.  “Did you think I was going to wash you with your clothes on?” he asked sternly, grabbing me around the waist to keep me still as I instinctively pulled away.  “Be still.”

 

I shuddered as he yanked the buttons open one by one, baring my chest to the cool air.  I took a deep breath through my nose and tried not to think about the way he smelled.   _ Fuck fuck fuck.   _ I suppose this was what he meant by trust.  He was so close, I could see the stubble on his jaw, the sharpness of his collarbone, the jump jump jump of the veins in his neck.

 

My eyes jerked away and to the muzzle still hanging by the door.   _ All I have to do it bite him.  One bite and he’ll be mine.   _ But, while my mind plotted, my body thought only of the stuffiness of that mask, the pain of starvation, and I couldn’t make it move.  

 

“Turn around.”  Turning my face away and burying my nose into the crook of my elbow, I complied, spinning on my toes until my back was to him.  I gasped at the sound of ripping fabric and with a cold shock, my shirt fell away.  He couldn’t take it off around the chains, so he cut it off my back.   _ Damn, I paid a lot of money for that shirt,  _ I thought foolishly as it fell in tatters to the floor.  Moments later, his arms were around my waist and he jerked my leather pants down and off my legs.

 

For a long time, I just hung there in silence, bare and shaking.  Oh, God, he was looking at me.  Really _ looking  _ at me.  My face flushed and I curled into myself, tucking my elbows in close to my head and squeezing my knees together.  It’s not like I’d never been in an incriminating position with a man before, but for some reason, I’d never felt so naked.  So exposed.  I clamped my eyes shut and tried not to think.   _ The sun on a cool day, a long, hard fuck-- _

 

“Jesus Christ son of a bitch!” I cursed as a column of ice cold water hit me square in the back.

 

“Language.”

 

“Well, it’s fucking cold.”  He grabbed me by the hair and yanked my head back.

 

“Be quiet or I will silence you.”

 

“Okay, okay.  I’m sorry.”  He released me and I heard his hand dunk into the water bucket.  With all the care of washing a car, he began scrubbing me down with a sudsy sponge.  Teeth chattering, I cringed as he neared my most private areas, but he passed over them quickly, concentrating instead on my feet, my armpits, behind my ears.  He squeezed a bottle of detergent over my head, massaging it into my hair roughly with his hands.

 

“What’s wrong?” he asked in response to a tense hiss.

 

“The soap,” I said.  “It’s in my eyes.”

 

His feet scraped across the wet concrete as he moved around in front of me.  I gasped as I felt his hands on my face sweeping away the suds that blurred my vision.  Over my forehead, across my eyelids, even into the corners, he brushed his fingertips over my eyes until I was able to blink them open.

 

“Better?” he asked, his fingers still lingering on my cheeks.

 

“Yes,” I said, my voice rough around a sudden lump in my throat.  “Thank you.”

 

_ A long, hard fuck. _

 

I gasped and clenched my teeth as a tingle began in my thighs.  An appetite only matched by my hunger for blood slammed through me with monster truck force.  An appetite too long ignored.  I cursed to myself as I struggled to steady my breathing, desperately trying to think of anything else, anything to stop the tightening between my legs, but I was suddenly hyper-aware of the soap sliding over me, of Tomo’s hands as he scrubbed at my chest.

 

He froze and my heart sank.   _ Fuck _ , I was hard.  I was hard and he had noticed.  A chill that had nothing to do with the cold ran through me as he lifted his eyes to mine.  “Does this excite you?” he said through clenched teeth.

 

“No!” I said, shaking my head furiously.  Pain sliced through me as he thrust his hand between my legs and took me in an iron grip.

 

“What are you thinking about, huh?” He squeezed even tighter and I twisted madly against the chains in an effort to get away.  “Are you thinking about being bent over, your face in the mud?  Or that I’d take you like this, stretched out and trussed up like a turkey?”

 

“No, please!” I whimpered.  “I didn’t mean to, I swear.  I couldn’t help it.”  His grip loosened only slightly and he leaned in close, his nose touching mine.

 

“As if I’d ever put my dick in an  _ animal _ like you.”

 

He released me and I sobbed with relief.  My muscles seized with fear as he disappeared behind me.  Suddenly, the entire bucket of cold water dumped over my head and a string of curses burst from my throat before I could stop them.

 

“What did I tell you about that  _ mouth _ ?”

 

Something long and flexible struck me hard across the back.  The hose.  He’d doubled it over in his fist and was whipping me with it.  Over and over he struck me, pausing every third or fourth stroke to let me heal before cutting me up all over again.  I cried and begged, body convulsing with each strike until my vision blurred and I could no longer hold myself up.   _ This is it, _ I thought as my consciousness faded.   _ It’s finally over.  Killed by a fucking hard on. _

 

I was shocked back into awareness as the chain abruptly lowered, dropping me hard onto the concrete floor.  Tomo yanked the chains of my wrists into the anchor and jammed it closed with his heel, leaving me even less slack than before.  Forced into a fetal position, unable to sit up, I wailed in despair as I saw him go for the muzzle.

 

“Please, no,” I begged.  “I didn’t mean it.  I’ll behave, I swear.  Please--”

 

My words cut off as he forced the muzzle over my face and around my head, snapping the padlock into place.  He dropped down to his hands and knees, pulling my head up by the hair so he could spit the words in my face.

 

“Stay down there,” he hissed.  “Stay down there until you remember what you are and where you belong.”


	5. Chapter 5

Naked, curled into a tight ball in a puddle of cold water, I shook so hard I thought my bones would break.  Less from the cold than crippling fear and uncertainty.  I’d seen Tomo angry before, but it was always a controlled sort of anger.  Cause and effect.  Crime and punishment.  Even though I knew on a superficial level why he had beaten me, the ferocity of his most recent abuse felt different.  Like rage.

 

Did he see my involuntary physical reaction as some sort of personal affront?  A threat to his control?  Or was it something different?  I suddenly thought of every story I’d ever seen on the news about deeply closeted gay men compensating for their own insecurity with violent homophobia.  Then, I thought about how he looked at me.  How he touched me when he swept the soap from my eyes.  How despite the chains and the beatings and the starvation, he showed some small amount of care for my comfort.

 

Was that why he was angry?  Because my arousal had triggered his own?

 

The realization sent a wave of confused emotions through me.  I felt hot and flushed despite the chill and I pressed my body into the cold floor to make it go away.  It couldn’t be true.  Tomo and I were mortal enemies.  He had imprisoned and tortured me.  Treated me like an animal because he thought I was one.   _ It’s the isolation, that’s all, _ I told myself.   _ You’re lonely and horney and any warm body within ten feet of you would make you hard.  _

It definitely wasn’t him.

 

My teeth clenched as the cold fought its way back in.  I distracted myself by figuring up how many times he’d visited with those little bottles.  Eight?  Ten?  Assuming he came in once a day, that meant I’d been here at least a week.  A week with little to no human interaction.  A week with only his cold stares and harsh punishments.  It was no wonder I clung to any semblance of kindness. I growled into the mask covering my face and bunched my hands into fists.  It wasn’t kindness, but manipulation.  A false sense of comfort to lull me into obedience.  I’d been trained like a dog.

 

But, why?  He still wanted me to die, didn’t he? He still showed me that damned knife every day.  What was he training me for if he only aimed to break me down?

 

My body tensed reflexively at the sound of his keys in the door.  Back already.  I squeezed my eyes shut tight in anticipation of some new horror, but all I felt was something soft being draped over my body.  I flinched as warm hands moved over my arms, urging my cold blood back into motion.  My eyes leaked and a muffled sob broke through the mask as he pulled my body into his lap, wrapping a thick blanket tight around me and triggering a flush so intense I nearly broke a sweat.

 

“Drink this.” A bottle of blood appeared in front of my nose and I jerked my head away.  I couldn’t take his drug.  Not now, with my mind in shambles.  “It’s clean,” he insisted.  “Look.”

 

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously as he dribbled a bit of blood onto his finger and licked it off.  He cringed a bit at the taste, but seemed otherwise unaffected.  He looked down on me again with a bounce of his eyebrows, releasing a long sigh at my questioning look.

 

“I overreacted, okay,” he said, his face twisting in annoyance.  “Consider this an apology.  You can take it or leave it.”

 

I considered a moment before slowly turning my head back toward him.  With a nod of approval, he fit the bottle into the hole of the muzzle and tipped it up.  The first slow trickle made its way over my lips and I swallowed hesitantly.

 

Fuck me, he was telling the truth!  I released a long moan and opened my throat up wide to devour the blood he fed me.  Still dead and rancid, but at that moment, the best thing I had ever drank.  My whole body warmed as the blood slid under my skin like a caress, the aching tension in my muscles releasing for the first time since I’d been here.  I felt blissfully high, relaxing completely into Tomo’s arms as he held me.

 

I whimpered a bit as he pulled the empty bottle away and set it aside.  I gazed up at him through hooded eyes, my head in the clouds as he shifted to dip his fingers into his pocket, plucking out a key.  The key to the padlock that secured my muzzle.

 

“Are you going to bite me?” he asked, holding the key in front of my nose.  I answered with a lazy shake of my head and he slipped the key in the lock, snapping it open.  I sighed as he lifted it away, setting it on the ground beside him.  My eyes slid closed as I settled even deeper into the high, so much different than living blood and yet so much the same.  Tomo wiped a bit of blood from my lips and I found myself leaning into his touch. 

 

“What...does it feel like?”

 

“Like flying...and sinking,” I answered dreamily.  “Like swimming through silk.  Like...falling in love.”  I pressed my nose into Tomo’s chest and inhaled deeply.   _ Get a hold of yourself, Takashi! _

 

“And, with the poison?”

 

“Like drowning.”

 

For a long time, we sat in silence.  He usually never lingered after I’d finished off a bottle and part of me wondered why now.  A bigger part of me didn’t care and I knew that should scare me.  He swept a hand through my hair, clicking his tongue when he found it matted and sticky with soap residue.  Without a word, he shifted himself out from under me, lowering me carefully back to the floor and tucking the blanket around my shoulders.  I snuggled deep into it, finding the places his body made warm as he slipped out the door.

 

My eyes popped open when he reappeared only a few minutes later with a pair of shackles dangling from his hand.  I lifted my head as much as I could, a cold knot of apprehension forming it my gut.  He strode quickly toward my feet and I yanked them back as he flicked the blanket off of them.

 

“Be still,” he said sharply, grabbing my ankles and jerking them back toward him.

 

“W-what’s going on?” I asked.  “Am I being punished?”

 

“No,” he said, snapping the shackles around my ankles.  “This is for my protection.”  Before I could ask, he stood and moved back to the door, jamming his finger into the panel on the wall and releasing the anchor in the floor.  “Get up.”  

 

I just stared at him, blinking in disbelief.  He crossed his arms, arching an eyebrow toward me and I sat up slowly, watching his face for any indication that I was doing something wrong.  Get up?  My hands, while still shackled together, were no longer bound to the floor.  Clutching the blanket around my shoulders, I pulled my legs underneath me and carefully pushed myself up.  I wavered a bit as I regained my footing, my head still a bit light from the blood I just drank.  I balked again as Tomo swung the door open and waved me toward it.

 

“Come on,” he said.  “Let’s get you a proper shower.”  I pulled the blanket tighter around me.  This couldn’t be real.  He wasn’t letting me...out?  “This is a one time offer.  Do you want it or not?”

 

“I do!” I said quickly.  I shuffled toward him, the chains rattling between my feet.  I paused again at the doorway, looking to him for confirmation before crossing the threshold.  He just frowned and gave me an impatient little push.  I moved ahead of him into a short hallway, stumbling a little as I adjusted to the chain’s short stride length.

 

A strange feeling came over me as I exited the hallway into the living area.  The same living area in which I’d practically thrown myself at Tomo that first night.  Somehow, I thought it would be different, that it would have changed in some way after the revelation of Tomo’s true character, but it was exactly the same.  My eyes misted as I strained to get a peek through the drawn curtains, but he hurried me through with a firm hand between my shoulderblades.  I just wanted to know the world still existed out there.  I just wanted to see the sun.

 

He led me to a bedroom on the other side and pushed me into the attached bathroom.  It was as generic as the rest of the house.  A white formica countertop, a fiberglass modular shower and a small stainless steel tub.  On the counter lay a neatly folded pile of towels and some clean clothing.

 

“Everything you need is there.  I’ll be standing right outside.”  He reached behind his back and pulled a small snub-nosed revolver from his waistband.  “This is loaded with silver bullets.  I’ll be very disappointed if I have to use it.”

 

Swallowing hard, I nodded my understanding and he tucked it back into his waistband.  He grabbed the edge of the blanket covering me and whipped it from my grasp, leaving me bare save the chains and slammed the door.


	6. Chapter 6

For a long time, I just stood there frozen, confused, unsure of what I was allowed to touch.  It was like I’d spent so much time in isolation, I’d forgotten how to be normal.  I reached out and touched the little stack of linens as if they were some mystical thing, letting my fingers graze over them with awed reverence.  

 

A figure appeared in the corner of my eye and my heart seized before I realized it was my own reflection in the mirror.  I stared as if looking at a stranger, running a hand over my face and body.  Darkly shadowed eyes, matted hair, lean torso.  An endless expanse of smooth, pale flesh.  I expected to find myself emaciated, but of course my vampire body showed no outward signs of starvation or the multiple beatings I’d suffered.  

 

_ Your life is unnatural. _

 

I flinched as Tomo pounded on the door.  “I don’t hear any water running!”  I rushed to the shower and jerked on the knob, triggering a wide spray of hot water that quickly filled the room with steam.  I listened with my heart in my throat for any sign that Tomo would burst in, but he seemed satisfied to leave me alone and after a few seconds of fiddling with the temperature, I eased myself under the stream.

 

My  _ God _ , did it feel good.  A giddy sound slipped past my lips as the water ran over my head and down my body, warming my skin and washing away the sticky film that had built up on it.  I didn’t realize how filthy I was until I started to get clean.  The horse bath I’d gotten from Tomo only seemed to make things worse, covering every part of me with a grimy residue that made me itch all over.  I reached for a long, blue bottle of body wash and popped the cap, taking a deep sniff and instantly my thighs began to tingle.

 

_ No no no _ , I said to myself, shaking my head furiously and snapping the cap closed.  The last time this happened, I was beaten within an inch of my life.  If I was human, he might have even killed me.  I found another bottle pushed into a corner, a pink one with a more floral scent that looked like it hadn’t been touched in ages, squirted it into my hands, and aggressively lathered up as if I could wash my impure thoughts out of my skin.  I scrubbed my hair, ducking my head fully under the stream until it drowned out the rest of the world.

 

_ The sun on a cool, clear day, the nape of a girl’s neck, the taste of fine wine, a long, hard-- _

 

I jerked the handle and grit my teeth as the water went ice cold.  I clapped my hand over my mouth to stifle a choked sob.  He taken them away from me.  All of them.  He’d shuttered the windows, starved me to the point I couldn’t think of a neck without wanting to tear it open.  When I tried to remember the taste of wine, I only tasted dead blood and I trembled in fear of his beatings at the slightest sign of arousal.  I would spend the rest of my days, be they an eternity or only a few, chained to the floor, counting them off by the appearance of his long shadow in the door.

 

I cried until I was empty.  Shivering and exhausted, I cut off the flow of water, leaning against the wall as it dripped from my hair.  Even when I was human, I’d made it a point to find joy in the small things in life.  A good meal.  An empty train seat during rush hour.  But, there was no joy here.  Nothing to cling to except a dead blood high and Tomo sweeping the soap from my eyes.

 

I moved like a robot, stepping out of the shower and wrapping a fluffy towel around my waist.  Wringing the water from my hair, I poked at the clothes he left me.  I lifted up the top and held it out in front of me.  A black stretchy thing, basically a tube top with little ribbons that tied over the shoulders, allowing me to pull it on despite the limitations of the chains.  It fit tight, like a second skin, leaving a wide band of belly exposed.  For my bottom half, he provided a long, flowing black skirt with an asymmetrical hem that danced around me in plush folds as I twisted my hips.  If I let myself, I could almost feel like a person.

 

A woman’s clothes.  A pink shampoo bottle.  Did a woman once live here?

 

I found a wire-bristle brush and a handful of black elastics tucked in a drawer and used them to pull my damp hair into something manageable before steeling myself for what lie on the other side of the door.  Tomo’s cold, hard eyes and a short walk back to my dungeon.  The room tilted and my eyes burned once again as I lay my hand on the knob.  Can I do this?  I wasn’t so sure anymore.

 

I opened the door slowly and stepped outside.  Tomo sat in a chair at the other side of the room, his big, wrought-iron bed filling the space between us.  Shadows obscured his face, but I could feel his eyes on me, raising goosebumps along my exposed skin.  I smoothed my hands over my skirt and wrapped my arms around my midsection, my eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance.  

 

He stood slowly, moving around the bed with catlike strides.  He narrowed his eyes as he stood in front of me, so close I could feel his body heat.  In one, quick motion, he pulled the silver knife from his belt and pressed it against my neck.  For a long moment, I hesitated before turning my head away.  I couldn’t tell you why.

 

Tomo’s eyes clouded and he slipped the knife back into his belt.  “Sit down,” he said, gesturing to the bed.  Without looking at him, I complied, perching myself on the edge near the headboard.  “No, up.”  He pointed again, this time toward the headboard and I shifted up onto the bed, leaning my back against it.  For the first time, I noticed a heavy D-ring hook fastened to the iron frame and something inside me screamed in alarm.  

 

“What’s going on?” I asked, voice choked as Tomo grabbed the link of chain between my shackles and pushed it through the hook over my head.  

 

“Lie down.”  My chest tightened as I slid down, my arms still stretched up over my head.  Tomo moved silently toward an end table littered with small objects.  A hard, rubber ball.  A small, nondescript bottle filled with clear liquid.  An egg-shaped lump of silicone connected by wire to a hand-held switch.  Tomo dipped his fingers into a pool of black cloth and lifted it up.  A blindfold.

 

“What are you doing?” I asked in a shaky voice, barely able to catch my breath as my heart began to shake from its moorings.  He laid the strip of cloth carefully over my eyes, pulling the ends behind my head and tying them in a knot.  “Am I being punished?”  Silence.  “Please, just say something.  What are you going to do to me?”  The bed dipped as he leaned down close to my ear.

 

“What you wanted the day you met me.”

 

Tomo shoved the rubber ball into my mouth and despite my fear, I couldn’t stop the lustful groan that rumbled up from my chest and into my throat.  My heart thundered in my ears as he traced the line of my jaw with his fingertip, down my neck, over my collarbone, generating a tendril of warmth that slipped through me and curled up in my groin.  

 

“I tried so hard to ignore you.”  His breath brushed my neck, making me shiver.  Disgust and need in equal parts.  “But, you just wouldn’t let me.”

 

_ Life is about choices. _

 

I bit down hard on the ball in my mouth as Tomo’s presence over me disappeared.  I felt dizzy, my breath coming in panicked, nasal huffs.  I wrapped my hands around the chain over my head.  I was sure I could break the ring holding it to the bed.  I was certain he knew it, too.  But, then I remembered that gun with the silver bullets.  Shackled and blindfolded, how far could I really get before he used it on me?

 

I flinched as something soft and light dropped onto my stomach and came to rest on my belly button.  The silicone egg.  I flinched again, a little whimper pushing past the gag as with a click, it started to shiver.

 

_ Oh, God.  Oh fuck oh fuck.  A vibrator. _

 

My whole body curled into itself as I felt his hands on the edge of my skirt.   _ Shit shit shit. _  I pushed my knees together as he gradually pushed it up, twisting my hips in an effort to hide my body’s treachery.  He grabbed me hard, forcing me back down flat on the bed.

 

“Be still,” he said, voice husky.  “I won’t punish you.”

 

My eyes burned and tears dampened the cloth over my eyes.  I trembled as he pushed my skirt all the way up and exposed me to the open air.  The chains rattled between my feet as he pushed my knees up and apart.  The vibration on my belly stopped as he plucked it up, moving back toward my head and popping open what could only be a bottle of lube.

 

“Look at you,” he said, his voice taking on a breathless quality.  “You hate me, but you need this, don’t you?  Need it as much as the blood I give you.”

 

_ A long, hard fuck. _

 

A pained whine cut through me as he moved back down the bed.  My thighs trembled as he pushed the tapered end against me, now cold and slick with lube, and rubbed slowly along the rim.  I gripped the iron bars of the headboard to keep from yanking the chains as he  pushed it inside, my hips lifting toward it despite my best efforts to keep still.  

 

I fell back into the bed with a groan as my body completely enveloped the little egg.  For a long time, nothing happened.  My insides twitched and trembled around the thing inside me and my stomach turned with a sick anticipation.  Was this his new form of torture?  Leaving me thinking about the pleasure I could have without giving it to me.  Hanging me with a sort of suspended need that would never be satisfied.

 

A little click and my whole body bucked as a slow pulse started inside of me.  I instantly broke into a sweat as it fanned the flame inside me, making it swell to its gentle rhythm.  My mind reeled as it fought with the reality of what was happening to me.  He was a hunter.  He planned to kill me.  To that end, he had imprisoned me, beaten me, now raped me.  I didn’t choose this.  I didn’t.  I didn’t choose this and it felt so fucking good.

 

I released a keening cry as he clicked the remote again, increasing the vibration inside me.  My hips pushed upward on their own, my whole body rolling as waves of pleasure undulated through me.  I could hear his unsteady breathing near my head and I arched toward him.  

 

“You want me to touch you?”   _ God, please, yes. _  “You want to cum, don’t you?  You want to cum so bad it hurts.”  I practically screamed against my gag as he upped the vibration again.   _ Fuck, please, just touch me.  _  I twisted and writhed, pushing my swollen cock against the mattress, desperate for stimulation.  Fireworks flashed behind my eyes, my breath caught, and every muscle tensed and then--

 

Everything stopped.  I crashed back down as he switched off the vibrator and the heat that had been building suddenly condensed into a hot coal in my gut.  I flopped back onto my back, panting and sobbing, my toes curled in the sheets beneath me.  Every muscle trembled with unreleased tension as I felt his dark presence looming over me.  

 

“I don’t have to touch you to make you cum.”

 

I moaned again as he breathed a hot stream of air into the hollow of my clavicle, down past the thin material of my top.  My back arched as he crossed over my nipple, down my stomach, around my belly button.  The heat swelled again as he blew across my hipbone and then--

 

Like a rubber band drawn too tight, something snapped inside as a stream of hot air hit my cock.  A burst of bright white against the darkness as pleasure overtook me, erasing my mind and shaking my whole body.  With a guttural cry, I melted into the bed, twitching as the tension released itself in waves, my hips still rocking on their own as I pulsed wet and hot over my thighs.  

 

Without a word, Tomo gently tugged the vibrator out of me and pushed my skirt back down.  Every brush of his fingers, every accidental touch made my body jump with electricity.  He didn’t even touch me.  Why didn’t he touch me?

 

The high of orgasm slowly dissipated, settling into a hard ache in my chest.  I didn’t move as Tomo carefully pried the ball from between my teeth and removed the blindfold.  I blinked slowly, weary eyes struggling to focus.  Jeans unbuttoned.  Pupils dilated.  Hair stuck to his face.

 

My mind went muddy and silent tears streamed down my face.  Exhaustion barreled down on me, turning the world dark as I sank into a cold despair.  My eyes slipped closed and in a voice so weak I’m not even sure it existed, I whispered the words my captor longed to hear.

 

“Kill me.”


	7. Chapter 7

I rose slowly, reluctantly from a heavy sleep.  Not really sleep, but an unconsciousness that clung to me like tar, weighing me down and sticking me to the bed.  Warm and cold at the same time, I pulled my limbs in tight against my body, ducking my nose into the thick comforter draped over my shoulders.  I didn’t think.  Couldn’t.  A black void opened up inside me and sucked up all my conscious thoughts and emotions until there was nothing left but a vacuum.  In a way, it was a relief.  No more fear or confusion.  No shame at what had happened to me.  What I had  _ allowed _ to happen to me.

 

_ I tried so hard to ignore you. _

 

I pushed my nose into the pillow with a groan as a few nagging thoughts escaped and tickled at the back of my eyes.  He was right.  The sonofabitch was right all along.  I _ did _ choose this.  I’d started a chain of events that lead me here the moment I demanded Tomo’s attention.  

 

With that one simple realization, the black hole inside me collapsed, regurgitating everything it had devoured.  Reality returned in bright relief with the weight of the chains on my limbs, the burning in my veins, the stickiness on my thighs.  I burst into a bone-shaking cry, clutching at the blankets and pressing them against my eyes as if I could somehow hold back the flood.  

 

I lifted my head in a jolt of panic.  My hands.  I jerked my eyes up to the D-ring on the headboard and breathed a sigh of relief.  Intact.  I hadn’t yanked myself free in my sleep.  I shuddered to think what Tomo would do if he thought I’d tried to escape.  He must have released me.  My face warmed at the image of him lowering my arms from their bonds after I’d passed out, gently arranging me into a comfortable position before tucking me in.

 

_ What the fuck! _  I dropped my head back into the bed and buried it under the pillows as that warm feeling was replaced with stomach-turning revulsion.  There was nothing gentle, nothing romantic about what he’d done to me.  

 

My throat tightened and stomach lurched and I launched myself out of the bed toward the bathroom for fear I would wretch.  Shivering, eyes watering, I hung my head over the sink until the feeling passed.  I felt dirty.  I turned the water on as hot as it would go and splashed it over my face.  Yanked a rag off a shelf and frantically scrubbed at my thighs and belly until they were raw.  I wanted to scrape him off my skin.  But, I couldn’t.  He didn’t even touch me.  Why didn’t he touch me?

 

_ He doesn’t _ want _ to touch you. _

 

I sank to the floor as despair fell heavily over me again.  I remembered his face after he removed the blindfold and his undone jeans and wondered if he had touched himself as he watched me writhe on the bed before him.  Touched himself, but not the person, not the _ animal _ in front of him.

 

The void opened up inside me again and I fell silent.  With the memory of his face came the memory of the plea that came after it.  Why was I still here?  

 

“Takashi.”  My eyes rolled up to find his long frame standing over me.  His brow glistened with a sheen of sweat and face was pink, not from arousal, but from exertion, and his usual hard expression looked a bit cracked.  “Get up.”

 

My eyes dropped and I slouched lethargically against the sink.  With an angry growl, he snatched up the chain between my wrists and gave it an evil yank, forcing me to either stand or fall flat on my face.  Without even a chance to catch my balance, he dragged me behind him across the living room and back toward my cell, tossing me inside.

 

I expected a hard landing on the wet concrete, but instead I fell onto something soft.  A futon.  Blinking in disbelief, I spread my fingers wide over the mattress and curled them in the blanket rolled up on its end.  The blood and water had been cleaned from the floor and the anchor that bound me fitted with a longer length of chain, long enough that I may even be able to stand.

 

“Why?” I asked in a broken voice as he crouched beside me to secure my shackles to the floor.

 

“I’m nothing if not fair,” he answered without looking at me.  “You earned it.”

 

“I don’t want it.”  He ignored me, frowning deeply as he got back to his feet.  “I don’t want this.”

 

“You’d rather lie on your face on the wet floor?” he barked down at me.  I cringed, pulling my knees up to my chest.  “Or, you’d rather have this?”

 

There is was, that flash of silver.  A tremor went through me as I looked at it.  Fear and longing wrapped up in one.  He lowered himself to one knee in front of me and pressed it to my neck.  Two fat tears rolled down my cheeks, but I didn’t pull away.  The void inside swelled to encompass all of me and I could hear death beckoning, a siren song from the other side.

 

I wasn’t afraid.  I knew what to expect: a bright flash of pain and then swirling black.  Only this time, I wouldn’t fight its pull.  I’d let the current sweep me up and take me to whatever lie beyond.  I let my eyes fall closed and saw my Maker’s face and I wondered where she was. What would she feel when I was gone?  Sadness?  Disappointment?  I reached down deep and found her light in my heart, hoping that she could somehow feel how much I loved her despite the years of separation and how grateful I was for the life she gave me.

 

But, the pain never came.  

 

I opened my eyes to find a terrible shift in Tomo.  His thin lips pursed into a scowl, twisting his already severe features into the hellish face of a gargoyle.  A heat came off of him that could have burned me, his knuckles turning white around the hilt of the knife.  

 

“Liar.”

 

A mournful sound pushed its way up through my chest as he lowered the knife and slipped it back into its sheath.   _ Oh, God.  I’m going to be stuck here forever.  Stuck here with him.   _ I crumbled as he turned his back on me, my body collapsing in on itself as I shook with ragged sobs.

 

“Please!” I cried, tearing at my hair and my clothes like a damsel in a cheap melodrama.  I had no shame left anymore.  “You said...you said you would help me.  Please, Tomo, I can’t...I can’t take anymore.”

 

He spun back around and struck me hard across the face, sending me to the ground and spraying my new bedding with blood.  A split lip and a broken nose.  I choked and coughed as blood filled my sinuses and ran down my throat, shaking all over as my weakened body struggled to heal.  All the while, begging weakly,  _ Please, Tomo, Please, help me. _  Repeating the phrase over and over until it didn’t even sound like words anymore.  He just stood over me, his usually cold glare sizzling with rage, until I felt something fall heavily on the futon beside me.  I squinted through blurred vision, my fingers tentatively reaching out until I felt its sharp edge.

 

“You really want to die,” he said, voice low and dark, “do it yourself.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

The door slammed, leaving me alone with the wicked glare of that silver knife.  Injuries healed, tears dried, all I could do was stare blankly at the thing.  A symbol of pain and hate.  A symbol of something else, too:  a way out.  I slid my finger over the blade’s edge and watched with a hint of wonder as a bead of blood formed on the tip.  This mysterious bit of metal was the one thing in the world that could do my magical body harm.

 

My _ unnatural  _ body.

 

I wrapped my hand around the hilt and, scrubbing a crust of dried blood from my nose, pushed myself up into a seated position.  I knew enough about the flow of blood through a body to know just where to cut.  From wrist to elbow along the ulnar artery.  Along the femoral artery in the inner thigh.  If I was determined enough, I could even force the blade through my sternum and into the aorta, causing me to bleed out in seconds.  Messy, but quick.  There was also, of course, the carotid running along either side of the esophagus.  I lifted my chin and ran my fingers over the vein, feeling the light thump of my heartbeat, the steady swell of my breath.

 

_ The sun on a cool, crisp day…. _

 

I closed my eyes, gripping the hilt of the knife so tight it hurt.  Holding it in both hands, I leveled the point at the artery in my throat.  My heart raced and suddenly I couldn’t catch my breath.

 

_ The nape of a girl’s neck in her summer yukata... _

 

“Come on, Takashi,” I whispered to myself, struggling to restrain the tears that leaked from between my eyelids.  The tip of the blade bit into my skin and I started to shake so hard I nearly dropped it.

 

_ The taste of expensive wine… _

 

A horrible, painful wail burst out of me and reverberated off the walls.  All I had to do was apply a little pressure and this would all be over, but a cold, desperate fear froze my muscles.  What if I did something wrong and I didn’t die, but was left maimed by the hunter’s blade?  Worse, what if I did it right, but lacked the strength and courage to die, clinging to life at the last minute and ending up trapped in a starved, bloodless body?

 

“Tomo!” I dropped the knife into my lap and cried his name, tears flowing unchecked down my cheeks.  “Please, I need your help.”  Testing the new length of my chains, I scooted along the floor, stretching my arms toward the door, but still couldn’t reach it.  “I can’t...I can’t do it on my own.  You said you’d help me.  You said you’d help me, you sadistic sonofabitch!”

 

My pleas amplified with each word, swelling into a manic scream.  Fear and defeat melded into rage and I jumped to my feet, throwing the knife as hard as I could and embedding it in the door.  Every comfort he’d ever given me now felt like a lie and I turned my anger on the bedding, ripping at the futon and filling the air with tufts of cotton.  I yanked at my chains with the vehemence of that first day until my heart pumped lava, burning me from the inside.

 

I collapsed into a shivering heap, only vaguely aware of Tomo’s reappearance in the doorway.  Despair and shame wrapped their cold hands around my throat and I couldn’t breath.  Tomo knelt beside me in a pool of cotton, laying his hand on my back as I gasped and choked and I clung to his pant leg like a child.

 

“Why didn’t you touch me?”  For some reason, it was all I could think about.

 

“Did you want me to?” he asked, a note of surprise in his voice.

 

“No,” I said, pressing my nose into his thigh.  “I don’t know.  I don’t know what I want anymore.”

 

“You don’t want to die.”  A statement not a question and it made my eyes burn.  “I told you I’d help you and I intend to keep that promise, but only when the time is right.”  He paused, his fingers lightly touching the ends of my hair.  “In the end, you will thank me.” 

 

A little tuft of cotton floated down from somewhere, landing on his knee, and he flicked it off with obvious displeasure.  “Are you going to punish me?”  I asked, cringing away from him.

 

“No,” he said with a deep sigh.  “No, I think under the circumstances, I’ll let this one slide.”  Relief slid through me, followed by a sharp stab of panic as he got to his feet.

 

“Where are you going?”

 

“Clean this up,” he said sharply, disappearing once again behind a locked door.

 

As soon as the door closed, I disintegrated again, clenching my fists around the little balls of fluff around me.  The defiant part of me screamed in my ear,  _ Fuck him.  Let him clean it up himself.  _  But, the more broken part of me recognized that it meant he was right once again.  That the impulse to defy him meant there was still fight left in me.  That I wasn’t ready for his blade after all.  And, with it came the sick realization that he had saved me.

 

Tears fat with guilt, I sat up on my knees and gathered up all the expended cotton around me in a great sweeping motion.  I thought about his hand on my back silently comforting me as I broke down.  How he toyed with the ends of my hair as he fed me.  The fact that he’d allowed me to use his shower and provided me a soft bed to sleep in proved that behind his coldness was a kernel of care.  Maybe even affection.  

 

My cheeks flushed at the thought.   _ I tried so hard to ignore you.   _ He didn’t want to do this to me.   _ You don’t have to die in pain.   _ He didn’t want me to suffer.   _ It’s not your fault.  _  Perhaps his tortures weren’t tortures at all, but a reeducation.  Pulling my vampire mind down off its supernatural high horse and back into something more human.  Something that can see the grotesqueries of what I was.  Maybe even crave the mortality I once had.

 

And, I did crave it.   _ God _ , did I crave it.  I had to admit, immortality had brought with it a sort of lazy apathy.  There would always be tomorrow.  The joy of those small moments was diminished by the knowledge that they would happen again.  There would always be another sunrise, another girl, another bottle of wine.

 

That was what I missed.  What I’d been living without for a long time.  The beauty of impermanence.  

 

So, I made a vow to myself to live out the rest of my days, no matter how many or how few, as if each one were the last.  To witness each day with a new appreciation for what it brings.  To recognize that, even in this horrible place, there was beauty to be found.


	9. Chapter 9

I had to admit, it felt good having something to do.  A purpose.  Something to keep my mind busy and stave off the crushing loneliness until Tomo returned.  I painstakingly gathered up every little bit of fuzz and fluff, tying the remains of the futon’s shell into little sacks and filling them up.  Using contortionist tricks and feats of engineering, I managed to capture every stray speck of cotton from even the furthest corners of the room and when I was done, I ended up with three neat sacks in a tidy row.

 

I sat down almost proudly next to them, grinning to myself and smoothing my skirt out around my legs.  I imagined Tomo’s hard expression brightening with surprise when he saw how well I’d done, how diligently I had performed the task he gave me.  Would he praise me?  My heart fluttered at the thought.  

 

Hours passed and Tomo didn’t come and as my skin started to itch with hunger, my mind took a dark turn.  What if after he’d left, he’d changed his mind and decided to punish me?  After all, he’d done this kind thing for me and I’d destroyed it.  My back bowed under the weight of the guilt.  I deserved it.  Here I was beaming with pride over an accomplishment only made possible by my defiance.  I wound the chain around my hands nervously, pulling my lip between my teeth.  No.  As he said, he was nothing if not fair and he wouldn’t go back on his word, but I couldn’t help but wonder how this might affect things from here on.  Colder words.  Harsher punishments.  And, no more small kindnesses.

 

My heart had sunk into my toes by the time I heard his key rattle in the lock.  I hurriedly straightened up, running a hand through my hair and rearranging my clothes.  I swallowed hard, holding my breath as the door swung open.  He slipped inside like a shadow, the only sound a metallic rattle from a bag he was carrying.  I opened my mouth to greet him, but stopped short as my throat instinctively clenched at the dark aura surrounding him.  

 

Something was off.  His movements, usually smooth and catlike, were stiff and jerky as if his muscles simply refused to work together.  He fumbled with his keys, dropping them twice before managing to shove them in his pocket.  His brows sat low over his eyes, casting them in shadow and hiding some unaccustomed emotion as he set the bag down just inside my range of motion and dipped his hand inside, pulling out a long, cylindrical thermos filled with blood.  Without speaking or even looking up, he held it out to me.  I took it hesitantly and when my fingers brushed over his, I felt them shake.  

 

“Are you--”

 

“I have to leave for a few days,” he interjected, cutting off my question before I could ask it.  “So, don’t drink this all at once.”

 

“Leave?” An acidic bolt of panic laced through my chest.  “Where?”  

 

“Do you really want to know?”

 

“For how long?” I asked, swallowing the bitter taste rising in my throat.

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“And, if you don’t come back?”

 

“I will.”

 

“But, what if you don’t?”

 

“I said I will!” he barked, making me shrink back and clamp my teeth together.  He huffed, nostrils flaring like a bull, and he ran a hand over his face as he struggled to rein in his temper.  

 

“There’s something else going on, isn’t there?  Something out there.” I gestured to the door with my nose and his shoulders fell.  “Tell me,” I pleaded, eyes misting with a surge of unexpected emotion.  “Tell me so I know if you don’t come back that you didn’t...that you didn’t just abandon me.”

 

Something crumbled behind his eyes and he wavered on his feet before sinking down to the ground beside me.  It was as if all the armor he wore to shield himself from the world, or the world from him, suddenly became too heavy to bear.  I waited beside him in silence, clutching the all but forgotten thermos between my hands.

 

“We lost someone today,” he said, his voice little more than an exhale.  “A great hunter.”

 

“Your friend?”

 

“My mentor.”  His head dropped and jaw clenched as he fought the tremor that went through him.  “His name is...was...Uruha.  He taught me everything I know.”

 

“So…” I started after a long, dense silence, “is that where you’re going?  Out for revenge?”

 

“No,” he answered quickly.  “What happened to him was a result of his own arrogance.  He took on more than he could handle and paid the price.”

 

“Who did he--”

 

“The Kings.”

 

“Shit.”  Tomo shot me a pointed look and I slapped my hands over my mouth as if I could stop the curse before it left it. 

 

He released a tired sigh, his eyes dropping back to his hands clutched in his lap.  Punishing a slip of the tongue was clearly the last thing on his mind as he fell into a sullen silence once again.  The air around him was thick with sadness and it made me ache.  Without thinking, I laid a hand over his clenched fists and for a long, surprising moment, he leaned on me.

 

“It doesn’t matter,” he said suddenly, jerking away from me and jumping to his feet, his armor firmly back in place.  “He kicked a hornets nest with his actions.  He’s revealed our presence in Tokyo and now, a powerful vampire has returned here.  We don’t know why or for how long, but he can’t be ignored.”

 

“Tomo…”  My stomach did a flip inside me as he moved for the door.

 

“We may not be able to kill him” he said, his voice taking on a manic tone, “but we can drive him out.”

 

“Tomo, wait.”

 

“Tokyo is no place for monsters anymore!”

 

“Tomo, stop!”  He froze, one hand on the door and the air between us turned brittle.  He turned just enough to show me his stony profile.  “I’m sorry about your friend.  Please don’t repeat his mistakes.”

 

His shoulder shook with a snorting laugh.  “You expect me to believe you feel pain for a dead hunter?”

 

“No,” I said.  “I feel pain for you.”

 

The hard line of his back softened just a bit and he turned his face away.  The ache I felt when he sat next to me returned and it was all I could do not to jump to my feet and reach out to him.  All the things he’d done suddenly didn’t matter.  The hunter faded into the background and all I saw was a man in pain.  A man mourning his friend and maybe even a little afraid that he would soon join him.  I balled my hands up in the hem of my skirt.  I felt like I was bleeding.

 

“There’s enough there for three days,” he said in a hoarse voice, gesturing to the bag he left on the floor.  “I’ll be back before then.”

 

The door closed behind him and he was gone.


	10. Chapter 10

The door closed and silence descended upon me like an anvil.  Three days.  The thermos shook in my hands and my heart pounded in my ears.  Three days of waiting, wondering.  Three days of knowing he was out there fighting against something stronger, something meaner, with an evil bloodthirst that could tear him to pieces.

 

Something like me.

 

I eyed the bag he’d left for me, the silver tops of the thermoses inside just visible over the top.  I opened the one in my hand and gave it a tentative sniff.  Clean.  Assuming all of the blood he’d left for me was the same, drinking them all could give me the burst of strength I needed to break free of my chains and escape this place.  I reached out and tugged the bag closer to me.  Three bottles.  Three days.

 

_ Don’t drink this all at once. _

 

Panic sliced through me and I jerked my hand away from the bag as if Tomo could somehow sense my intention.  Had he really managed to crawl so far under my skin?  As if to prove something to myself, I ripped the top off the thermos in my hand and, thankful for my new increased range of motion, poured it down my throat so fast I hardly tasted it.  Like shots of 151 in rapid succession, the dead-blood high hit hard, making my whole body heavy and pleasantly warm.  

 

I slouched against the remains of my destroyed futon and let the empty bottle slip from my hand and roll across the floor.  The blood’s warm fingers gently soothed my manic thoughts and racing heart.  Everything would be fine.  In a few days time, the door would open again and he’d be there, flushed with victory, and everything would go back to the way it was.

 

My eyes drifted again to the bag on the floor.  Was that what I wanted?  Everything back the way it was?  If Tomo returned, that meant a vampire dead, or at least in some way defeated.  The thought made my stomach turn sour.  But if he didn’t, that meant he was likely dead and that made me feel....

 

I groaned, wrapping my arms around my little cotton-filled sacks and pushing my nose into them.  I told myself the tingling worry wasn’t about him, but about me.  No one else knew I was here.  If Tomo didn’t return, I would be trapped here to starve, languishing in that awful sleep until someone happened upon me.  Even then, they would likely be human and assume I was dead, putting me in the ground to rot forever.  I lifted my head and spotted the silver knife still embedded in the door.  Could I get to it if I needed it?  Would I even have the courage?

 

I pulled myself back up into a seated position and hugged my knees to my chest.  The blood high quickly dissipated, turning the tingling into an all-over itch.  The silence pricked at my ears and the walls bulged inward.  I stared at the knife until the splintered wood around it oozed like a wound, cutting a dark trail of red down the smooth surface to pool on the floor.  I pulled my feet back as it reached for my toes, bubbling like something alive.

 

With a strangled cry I jumped to my feet, retreating as far as the chains would let me.  I squeezed my eyes shut, clapping my hands over my ears and rocking like a madman.  “It’s not real it’s not real it’s not real.”  My voice sounded thunderous in the quiet, accompanied by a shrill whistle that seemed to originate from between my eyes, rising in pitch and volume until I had to scream to hear myself over it.

 

All at once, it stopped.  I slowly eased my eyes open and let my hands fall from my ears.  The walls were back where they should be, the blood gone from the floor.  I looked at the bag Tomo had left again, this time practically diving for it.  I tore open one of the bottles, draining nearly half of it in one gulp. 

 

Three days of this?  I was likely to be insane when he returned.

 

As my mind settled down once again, I cursed myself for my weakness.  By giving in to temptation, I’d shortened my time by nearly half a day.  I had to find something to do, some small task to keep my mind busy so it didn’t succumb to visions.  I stood up and paced a wide circle, testing the radius of my chains.  Next, I stood directly over the anchor and lifted my arms as high as they could reach.  Not quite over my head, but close.  I looked above myself, spotted the hook Tomo had hung me from, and grinned.

 

“I have an idea.”

 

It started with a mess.  I went back to the bags of cotton I’d so painstakingly gathered up and tore them open again.  I carefully dumped their load of cotton into a mound before laying the fabric shell out flat.  After some mental calculation, I began tearing it into strips a couple of centimeters wide, using the entire span of my reachable space to lay them out in neat rows.  Once done, I weaved the strips into a mat a little more than a meter square, knotting them off in a way that gave them some mobility without the whole thing falling apart.

 

The next step would be the hardest.  I stood over the pile of cotton, glaring at it as if it were a nemesis to be defeated before plunging my hands into it and pulling out the biggest pieces.  Using fingers and toes, I pulled and stretched and twisted the fibers into long, thin ropes.  It took about half the pile and some creative splicing, but I ended up with four ropes roughly three meters long.

 

I have no idea how long the process took.  Without Tomo’s regular visits, I had no real way to judge the time, but I was about halfway through my second thermos of blood when I started fastening the ropes along the edges of the mat.  Two diagonally from corner to corner, the other two splitting the difference from edge to edge.  Using a smaller bit of my homemade twine, I stood in the center of the mat and bound them all together at their middles, giving the whole contraption a firm tug.

 

Now came the moment of truth.  I stepped out of the center of the mat and gathered up the ropes in my hand, eyeing the hook over my head critically.  Aim was crucial.  Given that I couldn’t raise my hands over my head, I would have to give the ropes a sharp upward fling to get them over the hook.  To hang properly, the center knot had to land precisely on the hook.  With my tongue poking out between my teeth, I positioned myself and counted off.

 

“One….two….”

 

I practically screamed with joy as the knot flew over my head and landed perfectly on the hook.  Bouncing happily on my toes, I made a little circle around my completed project before parting the ropes and climbing inside.  It worked beautifully!  The mat I’d woven spread out under me, cradling my body and suspending me about half a meter off the floor.  With a delighted giggle, I gave a little kick and set the whole thing swinging.

 

I’d made myself a nest.  A little cocoon of comfort in the cold world I’d come to live in.  I pulled my legs up and curled myself up inside it, nestling in and falling quickly into a contented sleep.  That is, until a sound from outside woke me.

 

The sound of a slamming door and the smell of warm, living blood.

  
  



	11. Chapter 11

The contraption creaked all around me as I sat up, back rod straight, and sniffed the air like a dog.  My lips curled and mouth watered as my muscles sparked with a sudden jolt of adrenaline.  Living blood.  The monster inside me, long sedated, now roared to life, scratching at the inside of my skin.  Every one of my predatory senses tuned to the movement beyond the door, I slipped out of my cocoon and dropped lightly to the floor.  Scraping, scratching, and then a heavy sound like something falling.  The smell grew stronger, so thick it was almost dizzying.  My heart pounded as the doorknob rattled and I crouched down like a lion waiting to pounce.

 

The door swung open and the monster got shoved aside by a bolt of shocked panic.  “Tomo!”  It didn’t occur to me what the presence of blood could mean until I saw Tomo leaning heavily against the door frame, his hand pressed to a growing dark stain on his abdomen.  I ran toward him without thinking, coming to a jerking halt as I reached the end of my chain less than a meter away.

 

“Told you I’d come back,” he said weakly, pressing his nose against the door frame to hide a wave of pain.

 

“Tomo, release me,” I said, yanking on my chains and eying the button panel just within his reach.

 

“Why, so you can eat me?” he asked with a bitter laugh.

 

“So I can help you!”  He was pale, sweating, the blood stain on his shirt now stretching down his leg to pool at his feet.  “You’re dying either way.  Quit being a---Just let me go!”

 

He grit his teeth around a groan, his breathing coming in unsteady gasps.  I could hear his laboring heart as he struggled to stay upright, clinging to the wall beside him.  Slowly, he reached a hand out, leaving a bright red streak in its path, and jammed his finger on the button.  With a desperate cry, I disentangled myself from the anchor and ran to his side, catching him just as his legs gave out and lowering him gently to the floor.  

 

“Jesus,” I muttered under my breath as I gently eased his hand away from the wound.  I wide gash the length of my hand tore across his left side toward his belly button, blood pulsing out of it with each beat of his heart.  I quickly threw myself along the floor, grabbing up the scraps of my little project and packing them against it, but the thin fabric soaked through in seconds.   _ Shit, this is bad. _ He would be dead in minutes if I couldn’t stop the bleeding.

 

“Drink this,” I said, biting into my arm just below the metal cuff and pushing it toward him.  He snatched at my wrist with his free hand, fighting it away with more strength than I thought possible.

 

“No,” he wheezed.

 

“It won’t change you, it’ll just make you stronger.”

 

“I don’t care.”

 

“You will die if you don’t heal!” I cried.  “Now is not the time to be stubborn.”

 

“I’d rather die than have that shit in me.”  

 

“You just might,” I growled, ignoring the sting of his insult.  A fight for another time.  “Fine.  Then, I have to move you.  Can you stand?”

 

He nodded, eyes glassy and breathing shallow.  I squatted beside him and threw his arm over my neck.  With one hand clamped over his wound and the other around his waist, I hoisted him to his feet.  He cried out in pain and I coldly shut it out, focusing on moving him as quickly toward the bedroom as I dared.  

 

With each shuffling step, his weight grew heavier and by the time I got him to his bed, he was completely unconscious.  He looked like a broken marionette, long limbs tangled and bent in awkward configurations.  I positioned him carefully on his back, wasting little time straightening him out and checking his condition before running back into the apartment to search for supplies.  

 

I hit the bathroom first, ripping open cabinets and drawers and finding towels, rubbing alcohol and a basic first-aid kit.  In the hall closet, I found a sewing kit equipped with several needles and various types of thread.  From the kitchen, I retrieved an assortment of bowls, the largest of which I filled with warm water from the tap, and a bottle of whiskey.

 

On my way back, I passed through a column of light and stopped.  A trickle of longing flowed through me as I stepped back into it.  Warm.  Sunlight.  I followed it with my eyes to a window with the curtains slightly agape.  It was out there.  The world was still out there, moving and living around this place that seemed to stand still.  Only a thin layer of glass separated us.  I could feel it, smell it, almost touch it.  

 

I could run.

 

A strange, cold emotion washed over me as my attention snapped back to the unconscious man in the other room.  I could run.  I could be free of this hell and return to my life.  But, if I ran, Tomo would surely die, alone and bleeding in his bed.  A pained sound slipped from between my lips.  He was a hunter.  Injured in the attempt to kill vampires.  What did it matter?

 

“Shit.”

 

As I ran back toward his room, I told myself I had no choice.  That leaving him to die would make me no better than him.  I would patch him up, get him stable, then call 119 for an ambulance.  Then, with help on the way and my conscience clear, I would run.

 

With my mind in tangles, I lined up my pilfered supplies next to his bed.  I set the towels and water bowl closest to my knee, then filled a smaller bowl with alcohol and dropped in a handful of needles and a spool of thread.  With scissors from the first aid kit, I cut open the front of his shirt and carefully peeled it away from the wound.  

 

I dunked a towel into the water bowl and Tomo moaned a little as I dabbed at the cut on his belly, trying to clear away some of the mess.  But, with every bit of blood I removed, twice as much seemed to spill out.  “I can’t do anything if you keep bleeding like this,” I grumbled.  I sat back on my heels, my lip between my teeth.   _ What do I do?  What do I do?   _

 

I sprang to my feet as I remembered something I’d seen in the bathroom after my shower.  A flat iron!  I quickly retrieved it, returning to Tomo’s side and jamming the cord into the plug by his bed.  I paced an impatient circuit around his bed as I waited for it to heat up, snatching it up the moment the indicator light turned green.  With a sharp yank, I pulled the two halves apart, leaving me with a wand of hot ceramic.  I took a deep breath, pressing my hand to Tomo’s chest and hovering the implement over the wound.

 

“This is really going to hurt.”

 

In one quick motion, I pressed the iron down on the wound.  Tomo’s eyes snapped open, the pain jerking him out of his semi-conscious state.  He thrashed on the bed, screaming and clawing at my arms, but I held him fast.  Nose burning with the stench of charred flesh, I waited until the iron stopped steaming before slowly lifting it off.  Tomo fell limp and panting back into the bed and I snatched up the whiskey bottle.

 

“I’m sorry,” I said, my eyes blurring.  “This will help with the pain.”  He took one, maybe two long pulls from the bottle before falling unconscious again.  I took up a clean towel and dabbed at the sweat on his brow.  “Good,” I whispered around the lump in my throat.  “That’s good.  Don’t stop fighting.”

 

I waited until Tomo’s ragged breathing evened back out before returning my attention to the wound.  Thank God, it worked!  The heat from the flat iron cauterized the gash in his belly, mostly stopping the bleeding.  A few stubborn places still oozed a bit, but I was able to clean it up enough to expose the ragged edges.  

 

“Someone really didn’t like you,” I said as I retrieved a needle and thread from the bowl of alcohol.  Squinting at the eye of the needle, I carefully ran the thread through it, cutting off what I thought was a good length.  I dabbed a bit of alcohol over the area, making his body tense and his brow furrow.  “I’ll try to be quick.”

 

I took a deep breath to steady my hands before pushing the needle through his tattered skin.  I moved as swiftly as I could, pulling the skin together and knotting off the threads.  My hands coated in his blood, I started to sweat as the monster reared its ugly head again.   _ Not now,  _ I pleaded within myself.   _ I need to get through this.  I’ll give you anything you want if I can just get through this. _

 

After what felt like hours but was really only minutes, I tied off the last stitch, sitting back on my heels and releasing my held breath.  It was messy and crooked, but no longer bleeding.  Without a hospital, it was the best I could do.  I plucked an antiseptic wipe and a roll of gauze out of the first aid kit and bandaged it up, praying there was no unseen internal damage.  If whatever cut him nicked his liver or bowel, there was nothing I could do.

 

Job done, I drifted to the bathroom in a daze, turning on the faucet and plunging my bloody hands under the stream.  I reeked of it, the front of my clothes caked with it, and it made me dizzy. I ripped off my top and threw it in the sink, watching the water run pink down the drain until I couldn’t take it anymore.

 

The hunger was winning.

 

I sprinted back to my dungeon and found what was left of the blood Tomo has prepared for me.  About a bottle and a half.  I drank it all, pouring it down my throat as quickly as I could swallow it.  I found two more bottles in a hidden compartment in the back of his refrigerator and drank those, too.  Stumbling drunk and heavy with a dead blood high, I wobbled toward to front door, stopping just beyond arm’s reach.  Freedom was just on the other side.  There was no heavy lock barring my way and yet, I couldn’t just reach out and turn the knob.  I was no longer chained to the floor, but I was bound by something else.  Something that snaked around me and rooted me to the spot as sure as those chains.

 

Tears sprang from my eyes and I had no will to stop them. I stumbled back to Tomo’s room and collapsed next to his bed.  I reached up and found his, limp and frighteningly cold, and wrapped mine around it.

 

“Just...don’t die,” I said between choking sobs.  “I promise, I’ll be good just please don’t leave me alone.”


	12. Chapter 12

He was unconscious for two days.  A few hours after my amateur surgery, he spiked a fever but it quickly broke, meaning it was caused by pain and not infection.  I left him only long enough to clean up the mess I’d made.  The rest of the time I spent sitting on the floor at his bedside, wiping the sweat from his brow, changing his bandages and feeling generally helpless.

 

When I heard him groan, my heart jumped with a mix of fear and relief.  I leaned over him, watching as he forced his eyes open.  He blinked slowly, as if his eyelids were lead weights.  His eyes rolled about the room, searching for something to focus on and finally landing on me.

 

“Tomo?”  He groaned again, running his tongue over dried lips.  I retrieved a bottle of water from the nightstand and, dropping a straw inside, held it up to him.  He drank greedily, so much I had to take it away.  “Not too fast or you’ll make yourself sick.”

 

“What are you doing here?” he asked in a raspy voice.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You could’ve run,” he said, gritting his teeth around a wave of pain as he tried to sit up.

 

“You would’ve died,”  I answered, pushing him back down.  He laughed bitterly.

 

“I’m surprised that’s a concern to you.”

 

“Yeah, me too.”

 

Silence fell between us and Tomo frowned deeply as he fingered the edges of his cut-up shirt and ran a hand over his bandaged belly.  “Are you a...doctor or something?” he asked, picking at the tape.

 

“No,” I said, slapping his hand away.  “I just...spent a lot of time in hospitals.  You know, before.”  He grunted, studying me for a moment before prodding at the bandage again.  “Did I do a good job?”

 

“Well, I’m not dead,” he answered through his teeth.  “Feels like hell, though.”

 

“This is all I could find for painkillers,” I said, hurriedly grabbing up the three one-dose packets of ibuprofen I found in the first aid kit and holding them out to him.  “I’m sorry--”

 

I gasped as he snatched them out of my hand, ripping all three open and pouring the six pills into his mouth at once.  “Whiskey,” he mumbled around the pills.

 

“Oh, I don’t think you should--”

 

“Whiskey!”

 

I flinched and quickly retrieved the whiskey bottle from under the bed.  He grabbed it, washing the pills down with three long swigs.  My fingers curled anxiously in the edge of the mattress as I watched him lift himself semi-upright, shoving pillows under his back for support.  While his foul temper made my skin prickle, the energy he showed filled me with a wash of relief. 

 

He was okay.  He was going to be okay.

 

“God, there’s blood everywhere.” I jumped to my feet to help him as he struggled with his shirt.

 

“I’m sorry,” I said, pulling it off his back.  “I was afraid to move you.”

 

“It’s here, too.” He scowled, plucking at my blood-spattered skirt.  “Go clean yourself up.”

 

“But, are you--”

 

“I’m fine,” he growled, snatching up the whiskey bottle and taking another pull.  He thrust a long finger toward the open bathroom door.  “Go.  But, leave the door open.”

 

I nodded, doing a nervous little dance before turning and shuffling toward the bathroom.  My top still lie soggy in the sink and I rung it out, hanging it over a rail in the shower to dry.  Reaching for the bindings on my skirt, I became intensely aware of the open door.  I glanced over my shoulder to find Tomo paying me no real attention, sucking on the whiskey bottle and poking at his wounds.  It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen me before, but the thought of undressing in front of him made my cheeks hot.

 

I grabbed a towel off the rack and, wrapping it around my waist over the skirt, slipped the garment down beneath it.  Modesty preserved, I relaxed a little as I stepped out of the skirt and lifted it into the sink, scraping at the crusted blood spotting the front of it.  The smell of it filled the air again as the water hit it, making my head swim.

 

I paused a moment, leaning against the sink and taking deep breaths to gather myself, when I felt a subtle prickle between my shoulder blades.  I lifted my eyes to the mirror to find Tomo staring back at me, his sharp gaze flashing like razor blades in the dimness beyond the door.  I flinched, jerking my eyes back down to the work in front of me.  Scrubbing furiously at the foul spots, I grit my teeth hard in an effort to ignore him, but I couldn’t.  I could feel his eyes scraping over me, hot and cold at the same time, down the back of my neck, across my shoulders, along my spine.  

 

_ Shit shit shit!   _ I squeezed my thighs together as if I could stop the inevitable.  My heart thundered in my ears as heat built up inside of me.   _ What is wrong with you, Takashi!   _ I tried to steady my breathing, to think of anything else, but every breath brought the smell of him into me, feeding that terrible flame of need.

 

Next thing I was aware of was a blood-spattered spiderweb of glass and a dull ringing between my ears.  Tomo standing behind me with one hand in my hair, the other between my legs, spewing a stream of insults in my ear.  I made a confused sound as a stream of blood slid down my forehead and dripped from the end of my nose.

 

“...this turn you on?” His voice breaking through the fog, snarling and venomous.  “The smell of my blood?  The thought of me lying prone and helpless?”

 

“No, I--” I gasped as a needle of pain shot through my groin.

 

“Don’t lie to me,” he said, jerking my head up off the counter.  “Your  _ eyes _ can’t lie.”

 

I whimpered as I caught sight of myself in the mirror, eyes white and swirling with the monster behind them.  Another jerk to my hair and he pulled me completely upright, releasing his grip on my cock and grabbing onto my hips instead.

 

“Get rid of it.”

 

“What?  I don’t--”  Another yank to my hair sent my concussed brain reeling.

 

“I said, get rid of it.”

 

My eyes locked onto his in the mirror.  The deranged rage I’d almost grown used to, but behind it was something different.  Something hotter.  And something inside me responded to it, making that flame inside roar to life as I slipped my hand inside my towel.  Tears sliding down my cheeks, I began jerking with quick, robotic motions, shivering as fear and lust collided within me once again.  

 

Hot, whiskey-laced breath poured over the back of my neck and his eyes clouded as he watched my hand move beneath the towel.  A little whimper slipped from between my teeth as I felt the telltale twitch against my lower back and his fingers slowly walked the towel up higher over my thighs.  He wanted to see.  He wanted to watch.  I went dizzy with the thought, my quick, emotionless race to completion turning into something else.  My strokes lengthened and slowed, my hips pushing forward into each one and my breaths coming in little gasps.

 

“Touch me, Tomo,” I breathed, pausing to run my fingers over the swollen head, sending tendrils of pleasure slithering down to my toes.  I laid my free hand over his on the towel and heard him groan.  “Touch me.  I want you to.”

 

His grip tightened but he didn’t move, his bare chest heaving against my back. I leaned back against him and his whole body went stiff.  His jaw clenched and a sheen of sweat appeared on his brow as if he were fighting his own monster and he couldn’t, wouldn’t let it win.

 

“Then, let me touch you.”

 

I spun around in his grip and he released a long, guttural groan as I swiftly unzipped his pants and slipped my hand inside.  The towel dropped to the floor as his grip moved to my arms in a half-hearted attempt to stop me.  As I suspected, he was already hard, springing free of his garments with very little coaxing.  Taking us both in one hand, a shudder went through our bodies as our skins touched, hot and pulsing with our racing hearts.  

 

I stroked us together and we moaned as one.  My head fell back and his buried his nose in my neck, his panting breaths filling the hollows of my clavicle.  Careful to avoid his wound, I hooked one leg around him, pulling his hips in tighter against mine as they jerked and shuddered out of his control.  My mind went blank to everything but the feeling of his lean body rippling against mine and the heat building inside.  I let the fire rage.

 

With a sound like crying, Tomo’s hand slapped the countertop to catch his balance as my hand went wet between us.  Seconds later, the volcano erupted inside me and I released a cry of my own.  Heat crashed through me and I sank back against the countertop as the tension released itself in rolling waves.

 

Dizzy, confused, mind spinning with contradictory emotions, I didn’t dare move until Tomo lifted his head.  For a second, he looked at me and in that second, something strange happened.  We were no longer hunter and vampire.  Captor and captive.  Abuser and abused.  In that one second, we saw each other.  The people we could be.  The people we wanted to be.  

 

For just a second.  And then, it was gone.

 

Tomo jerked his eyes away and pushed back from me, wincing and clutching his belly.  He bent stiffly, snatching my dropped towel off the floor and scrubbing at his crotch.  “Are you...okay?”  He answered by throwing the towel roughly back at me and hobbling back toward the bedroom.

 

“Clean this up,” he said, slamming the door closed behind him.


	13. Chapter 13

I didn’t know how to feel.  Even as my muscles trembled with the euphoria of release, I knew I should feel violated.  Once again, he’d punished involuntary bodily reactions by forcing a state of need and desperation.  But, how forced was it really?  All he’d wanted was for me to  _ get rid of it,  _ something easily enough achieved by a quick jerk under the towel.  Even if he wanted to watch, there was no need for me to perform for him, to pull him into the act with me.

 

And yet, I had.  Worse, I had thrilled in it.  My cells still popped with the electric memory of his skin against mine and my ears still rang with the sound of my victory.  As I scrubbed the stinkiness from my skin, just knowing some of it was his made my heart beat faster.  I felt that void opening up inside me once again, only now it tore me in half, dragging all the shame, anger and fear into its black depths and leaving only…

 

What, exactly?  Lust?  Infatuation?  The thrill of conquest?

 

Once finished cleaning myself up, I wrapped the towel back around my waist and turned my attention to the bathroom.  I carefully wiped the blood from the countertops and swept away every tiny shard broken glass lest Tomo find them with his bare feet.  My clothes hung from the shower curtain rod and were very nearly dry by the time I was done.  I tugged them down and pulled them on, carefully tying the little ribbons on my shoulders and smoothing the folds of my skirt.  I pulled my hair free of the elastic and let it fall in bouncing purple waves over my shoulders.  My eyes went milky behind my overgrown fringe and I combed my hands slowly through it, my cheeks going a bit pink as my fingertips lingered at the ends.

 

He always did like my hair.

 

I gasped and squeezed my eyes shut.  Had the void left something else behind, too? I shook my head vigorously as if I could shake the idea off, but it had me its grip.  Sunk its teeth in and wouldn’t let go.  I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes as a cascade of images filled my mind.  The brush of his fingers over mine on a blood bottle.  The warmth of his thighs supporting my head as he fed me.  That small moment of vulnerability when he told me about his friend.  I pushed harder against my eyes, making them explode in bright bursts of color.  

 

But, it was too late.  The warm feeling evoked by those images wrapped around me like vines, sinking their roots into the fertile ground of my loneliness.  My eyes burned and tears leaked down my cheeks.  I thought again of my maker and how disappointed she would be.  Even if I did escape, how could I face her after this?

 

I flinched at the sound of my name being called from the other room.  I took a deep breath and wiped the tears from my face.  Just the sound of his voice had a stilling effect on my confused emotions and I felt myself slide into a cool, quiet place as I checked my appearance one last time before poking my head out the door.  I was surprised to find the bed empty, the bloody sheets wadded up and thrown to the floor.  I crept out into the hallway to discover Tomo had moved to the couch, supported all around by pillows and a laptop on his lap.

 

“Shouldn’t you be--”

 

“Forgive me for being tired of lying in my own blood,” he snapped, making me jump.  His eyes narrowed as he studied my face, making me squirm.

 

“I’ll...clean it up,” I muttered, turning slowly back toward the bedroom.

 

“Do you know how to make katsudon?”

 

“Yes,” I said, stopping in mid stride.  He nodded sharply, pointing a long finger toward to kitchen.

 

“First, food.  Then sheets.”

 

I drifted toward the kitchen to the sound of his fingers tapping over the keyboard.  I gathered up the necessary ingredients, started oil heating on the stove and tried not to think about what he might be doing.  Communicating with other hunters?  Trading information and organizing another hunt?  I didn’t dare ask how the last one ended.  Tomo’s injury suggested that the vampire had gotten away.  The fact that he had returned alive, however, suggested otherwise.   Truthfully, I didn’t want to know which.

 

As before, I focused my thoughts on the task of cooking and found an almost meditative silence as I carefully washed the rice and set it to boil while I prepared and breaded the pork.  Soon, the kitchen filled with the smells of hot grease and spices, filling me with warm memories.  After my mother died, feeding the family had mostly fallen to me and, while I’d never been a particularly good cook, I had always enjoyed it.  I knew better than anyone the difference the comfort of a good meal could make and I found myself smiling at the thought of providing it again.  Another human pleasure I’d all but forgotten.

 

Once finished, I loaded the meal along with a fresh cup of green tea onto a tray and, careful not to trip on my leg chains, shuffled back into the living area.  Tomo gave me a sour look before moving his computer aside to allow me to set the tray in his lap.  His stomach growled loudly and I had to stifle a giggle as his cheeks went a little red.

 

“What took so long?”

 

“I’m sorry,” I said with a small bow.  “It’s been a while.”  He frowned again, eying me shrewdly before picking up his chopsticks and poking at the egg to expose the rice underneath.  Apparently satisfied I hadn’t booby-trapped his meal, he scooped up a healthy bite of egg, rice and pork and shoved it into his mouth, humming a little in appreciation and making my heart warm.

 

“Where are you going?” he asked around a mouthful of pork as I straightened and headed back toward the bedroom.

 

“The sheets--”

 

“Sit,” he said, pointing with his chopsticks to the floor by his feet.  Blinking in surprise, I returned to his side, pulling my skirt under my knees and arranging myself next to his legs.  I sat in a confused and awkward silence, eyes darting over my shoulder every few seconds as he stuffed the katsudon into his mouth.  

 

“Were you sick?” he asked suddenly, sucking a few grains of rice from between his teeth.

 

“What?”

 

“You said you spent time in a hospital.”  He scraped the last of the egg from the sides of the bowl and lifted it to his mouth.  “Were you sick?”

 

“Oh…”  I wiggled a bit in my seat, clasping my hands in my lap.  “Yes.  Tuberculosis.”  I looked up at him over my shoulder and he arched an eyebrow over the edge of his teacup.  “It was just after the war.  It wasn’t uncommon, then.  My sister...she worked in a silk mill.  When she got sick, she lost her job and we had no way to pay for a doctor.  My mother got it next.”  I took a shaky breath, closing my eyes against the memory.  “After they died and I started to show signs of the illness, my father took me to a clinic run by Jesuits and I never saw him again.”

 

“That’s where your maker found you.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“A doctor?”

 

“No,” I said with an ironic laugh.  “Honestly, I don’t know what she was doing there.  She just appeared at my side one day.”  I leaned against Tomo’s leg, dizzy and chest aching with remembered pain.  “They’d put me in a room on my own.  I was so far gone, even the nurses stayed away.  I was just there waiting to die when felt a warm touch on my hand.”  My eyes misted as I pictured her face, pale and glowing from within her long, black locks.  “I thought she was an angel come to lead me away to the next life.  I suppose in a way, she was.”

 

I looked over my shoulder again to find Tomo with a strange--dare I say, sympathetic?--look on his face.  He sort of twitched, jerking his eyes down and scraping at his empty bowl with a derisive snort.  Silence fell over us again, this one slightly more comfortable.  I stood to clear his plates, freezing at the sound of a sharp knock on the door.

 

Someone was here.


	14. Chapter 14

I felt stuck in time, as if that knock were a camera shutter freezing us both in that moment.  Tomo leaning slightly forward, my hand outstretched to take his plates.  A second knock broke the spell and Tomo grabbed me by the wrist, pulling me roughly toward him.

 

“Into the bedroom,” he hissed from between his teeth.  “Don’t.  Make.  A sound.”

 

He released me and I scurried away, my heart racing.  I fell over my chains as I crossed the threshold, landing in a pile just inside the door.  I righted myself quickly and pressed my back against the wall just inside the door, pulling my limbs in close and holding my breath.  A little voice inside me whispered,  _ What are you doing?  You should be screaming.  Pounding the walls.  Anything to get the visitor’s attention.  _  But, something gave me pause.  Something more than a fear of Tomo and his punishments.  Some dark, nagging premonition.

 

A rustle as Tomo struggled to his feet and the door clicked open followed by the distinct sound of two pairs of feet.  One light, but deliberate.  The other heavy and awkward.

 

“Hakuei-san!”  Tomo’s voice, crisp and tighter than I was used to hearing it.  “To what do I owe the pleasure--”

 

“I heard about what happened during your hunt.”  A dangerous, smoky voice.  “That you were injured.”

 

“I see…”

 

“I’ve brought a doctor.  Please allow him to look you over.”  Phrased like a request, but somehow I got the feeling it was anything but.

 

“Thank you, sir, but it’s really not necessary.”

 

“I insist.”  A tense silence fell over the room and I could practically hear Tomo scowling.  More shuffling of feet followed by the creaking of couch cushions as Tomo dropped into his seat again.  I shifted in my seat, leaning ever so slightly toward the door.  Despite the dread building in my gut, I burned with curiosity about the man that seemed to leave Tomo so cowed.  I eased one eye past the doorframe where I could just see Tomo seated on the couch, a heavy-set and severe looking man prodding at his belly.

 

“This is quite a serious wound,” he said in a surprisingly high pitched voice for a man so large.  “Who stitched this up for you?”

 

“I did it myself,” Tomo answered flatly.

 

“Are these burns?”

 

“There was quite a lot of bleeding.”

 

The doctor snorted and glanced upward and to his right where I assumed Hakuei lurked just outside my vision.  As if on some command, the doctor stood and moved away.  The couch dipped with added weight and Tomo cringed.

 

“What happened to your team?” Hakuei asked coldly.

 

“Dead, sir.”

 

“And, the vampire?”

 

“Gone, sir.”

 

“Hm.”  Another loaded silence and a tattooed hand appeared on Tomo’s knee.  “Well, at least you made it back.  Perhaps you’ll have a chance to try again.”

 

“Yes, sir,” he said thickly, swallowing hard.  “Thank you, sir.”

 

“Don’t get up,” he said, the couch shifting once again.  “We’ll see ourselves out.”

 

Tomo didn’t move, didn’t even seem to breathe until the front door clicked closed again.  Once the room cleared, he released a low groan and sort of deflated, scrubbing his hands over his face.  I hesitantly crept through the doorway and down the hall, hugging the wall.  I didn’t dare speak until Tomo looked up.

 

“Who was that?” I asked, breathless.

 

“That,” he said with a scowl, “was Hakuei.”

 

“I don’t like him.”

 

“I didn’t expect you would.”

 

“He’s not your friend.”

 

“He’s my superior.”

 

“He doesn’t care about you.”

 

“He brought a doctor,” he said with an exasperated gesture toward the door.

 

“Two days  _ after _ you were injured!”  Anger welled up in me as if I were the one betrayed.  “He expected to find you dead.”

 

“Well, I guess I just keep disappointing him, don’t I?”

 

His brows lowered over his eyes and a broken look flashed across his face.  Like a boy who wanted nothing more than to make his father proud, but couldn’t help but fail.  “You look up to him, don’t you?”  He narrowed his eyes and wrinkled his nose in suspicion.  “Come on.  I told you about my maker.  It’s only fair.”

 

He rolled his eyes and sighed.  “He’s...the best.  What we all aspire to be.”

 

“But?”

 

“ _ But _ ,” he said with an irritated curl of his lips, “we’ve never really seen eye to eye.”

 

“Why not?”  I asked, lowering myself back down to the floor by his feet.

 

“Why do you care so much?” 

 

“I don’t know!” I said, throwing up my hands.  “Maybe because you’re the only person I have to talk to.  Maybe I want to understand why you would keep me here like this.  Maybe I’m just fu---maybe I’m just bored!”

 

Tomo screwed up his face, eying me shrewdly.  He curled and uncurled his fingers, popping each of his knuckles individually before drumming them on his thighs.  He growled low in his throat before giving in with a deep sigh.

 

“We have...a fundamental difference of opinion when it comes to what we do.”  I rested my elbows on the edge of the couch, blinking up at him expectantly and he rolled his eyes.  “He believes that vampires are nothing but monsters and we should use any means necessary, no matter how cruel or horrific, to crush them.”

 

“And, you don’t?” I asked, sitting up in surprise.

 

“I believe…” he started, rubbing his index finger over the furrow between his eyebrows, “that what you are is monstrous, but it’s something that happened to you, not who you are.  I believe that at the core of every vampire is a human soul, even if they’ve forgotten it, and it’s our job to separate it from the monster and empower it.  And then, when the time is right, to set it free.”

 

That warm feeling permeated through my chest once again.   _ It’s not your fault.   _ My eyes burned as I thought of all the long-forgotten human pleasures I had remembered since being here and I turned my back before he could see them fall.  It all made sense now.  The harsh punishments followed so closely by gentleness.  

 

If I was two things, maybe he was, too.  The hard, dangerous parts of him, the quick temper and harsh hand, belonged to the hunter.  The softer moments, the comforting touch and sympathetic gestures, belonged to the man.  The man who tried to ignore me when he saw me at the bar.  The man who tried to hide the hunter’s eyes and pretend there wasn’t a monster inside of me.  

 

My body grew heavy with a strange sort of sadness.  I leaned against his leg and lay my head on his knee.  If only we were different people.  I closed my eyes as I felt his hand on my head, hesitant at first, then running through my hair in long strokes.  I found myself fantasizing about what could have been.  If we had met under different circumstances, would we have been friends?  Lovers?  The thought made me blush and filled me with a longing that took my breath away.

 

“You know,” he started in a strained, heavy voice, “it would be really...inconvenient if you were living for me.”  I laughed, pushing my nose into his thigh and wrapping my hands around his ankle.

 

“Tell me about it.”


End file.
